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Mikel Arteta has said that Arsenal have disrupted a promising and good season by losing big matches. The Spaniard was talking ahead of the home match against Swansea, but Arsenal come into the encounter after a massive disappointment on Saturday.

The 6-0 defeat not only inflicted a huge dent on the title hopes, but it also made Arsenal look inferior in comparison with the top teams (not to mention spoiling Arsene Wenger’s 1000th game party).

Arteta has accepted that it was the fault of the players on Saturday, as they allowed Chelsea to rob them of the ball and counter-attack. He says that it would be very difficult for any team to come back from 3-0 down with fewer players. Speaking to Arsenal’s official site, he said:

“The pressure we put on ourselves by losing games like that is massive and there's no need for it. We just disrupted the good season we were having.

“I don't know what else to say apart from sorry to everyone at the club, the fans, and we promise that we will try hard to put that right.

“I'm expecting a big reaction on Tuesday because we have to and Saturday was not good enough for this football club.”

Wenger will be ruing his decision to start without Mathieu Flamini, who is one of the best defensive midfielders at the club. Arteta is not a natural at this position and he was exposed very easily from the attacking trio behind the Chelsea striker.

The former Everton midfielder, though, will be hoping that this would be the last time he apologises to the fans considering that Arsenal have found themselves in this situation a couple of times already this campaign.

The 6-3 defeat against Manchester City and 5-1 defeat against Liverpool will be sore points of the season that looked so promising at the start of this year. Arsenal were top of the table and in with a shout to win at least three trophies. He continued:

“The first one [at Manchester City] you may analyse in a different way, the second one [at Liverpool] was a bit different in the way we conceded the first three goals but on Saturday in my opinion it was worse because it was more our fault.”

The club could still end up with their first piece of silverware since 2005, as they will take on Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup final in the second week of April. A run of just two wins in the last five matches needs to be improved.